


romantic ruin of the modern era

by bauhausModernism



Category: Original Work
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, Psychosis, Self-Harm, Suicide, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-08
Updated: 2012-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:01:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bauhausModernism/pseuds/bauhausModernism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life here is half of the time an accident and all of the time an inconvenience. Some realise this, and we call them ‘mentally unstable.’ I prefer to call them ‘enlightened.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	romantic ruin of the modern era

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings for suicide, self-harm, and implied illicit drug use. don't say i didn't warn you.
> 
> written as part of a contest of sorts between tumblr user mnemosymnal and myself.

There’s something to say about the world we live in. We walk down long grey streets and drown out the sound of long-forgotten dreams crunching underneath our feet with cookie-cutter beats blasting through our ears. They’re fragmented only by the dark alleyways in which animals both human and not go to be forgotten by the ones who rush by sporting quick, worried glances to their black leather wristwatches.

Time is easy to see here, but its meaning is not. In the minutes that you use to rush to work, to sit in traffic, to grab a drink, what have you lost? What have you gained? It seems like a rather silly question to ask if you don't think about it; after all, who has the time to concern themselves with such frivolous quandries?

The nuclear family is a strange one indeed. It is a group that, if its members did not have the same blood running through their veins, would simply be called ‘housemates.’ Perhaps not even that; acquaitances at the very most. A man and his wife sit together but alone as their half-lidded eyes reflect the image of today’s bad news being read with a fascimile of emotion from behind whitening strips and petroleum jelly.

Children are nowhere to be found at first glance even if you encounter their forms; their minds are elsewhere, unaccounted for, lost somewhere up in the clouds of plastic formed by ever-unchanging melodies and the desire to leave dependency behind by way of more dependency.

Somewhere along the line, the irony of it all was lost, and this is the way life goes in this neon-lit, mass-produced, third-generational age. Life is not something to live or to experience, not in the was it was truly meant to be and certainly not in the way our forebears lived it. Life in the third generation simply happens. Life here is half of the time an accident and all of the time an inconvenience. Some realise this, and we call them ‘mentally unstable.’ I prefer to call them ‘enlightened.’

 

I would say that I don't enjoy living, though that is not something that I can utter in good conscience. I suppose I would say that I do not enjoy being. I can’t say I’ve ever really lived, not really, and living is certainly not what I am doing now.

I wish that I could simply stop being, but I’m not allowed to. I tried once, and they gave me pills that made me see things, made me numb. They didn't make me want to be, they just made me not want to stop being anymore. The world looked different through half-lidded eyes blurred by artificial dopamine and dreams formed with a mouthful of melatonin. It would have been a comfort if I could have felt anything at all.

They tried to make me stop thinking so I fought back. It’s been eight months and three days since I’ve taken one of those horrid little white capsules and a week since my prescription has been filled again. Nine days since my last dose of my ‘non-prescription medication’ and three hours since I’ve taken a flame to the still too unmarred skin of my thigh. I’m not allowed to leave and the pain lets me feel. I love sensations, any kind so long as they’re intense. It helps me pretend I’m alive, just for a little bit.

They think I’m crazy but I could say the same about them.

 

This is something I’ve been waiting for for a long time.

There’s a finger on my carotid artery; I can feel the pulsations but it still feels foreign. I guess that a pulse is just another one of the ways that I can make myself believe that I’m living.

The blade in my other hand is cold and familiar; it’s more family to me than anyone who shares my blood. This is what makes me feel like I’m home, or at least like I’m on the way there. I can feel the beats under my fingers intensify with the thought.

I’m not quite sure what there is that's left to be said. ‘Goodbye’ doesn't quite seem like an appropriate sentiment; there’s no one I hold deep enough feelings for to warrant such a word. Perhaps it would be better to say nothing at all.

The numbers of the enlightened are dwindling every day, and I am one of the ones who’s given up. Perhaps this is how the world tells us that its secrets aren’t meant to be revealed and I think that is probably for the better. They say that ignorance is bliss and I could not agree more.

 

With the press of a blade, I was one of the enlightened. For a few seconds, I watch from above and take a last glance down at the people rushing about on grey streets, and I can’t help but feel liberated. The sky is vast and wide-open, and I cannot possibly hope to describe the feeling of running about, not constrained by monotone walls. I am absolutely elated. I can’t help but find it ironic that I can only say I’ve lived after I’ve died.

With a wave, I depart. I feel like an explorer leaving behind the site of an ancient civilisation and coming out with an unforgettable experience. The last thing in my memory is the sound of a song of metallic screams, of the romantic ruin of the modern era, before the world fades to simple, blissful black.


End file.
